Rating: C
Dir: Eric Shapiro
Star: Rhoda Jordan, Sherill Quinn, Richard Caines, Tricia Brooks
I’ve often said one of the keys to low-budget cinema is working within your limitations. If you can’t afford a car chase, don’t write one into your script. Shapiro certainly keeps things restrained here. A cast basically of four, and two locations: a hotel room and a park. That’s not going to break the bank of any low-budget production. Well, unless the people in the hotel really go wild on room service. However, the tricky part is trying not to seem cheap, and this is less successful there. Even at not much more than an hour, it’s often no more than two people talking to each other. Which breaks, albeit not disastrously, another rule of cinema: show, don’t tell.
In the hotel room, we have the troubled Sabina (Jordan), who is concerned about the voices in her head. She has called on healer Kelly (Quinn), who avoids calling herself the P word – psychic – to try and help using hypnotherapy. But when Kelly encounters Phentara, the other persona inside of her patient, it begins to look as if this might be outside her skill-set. Initially, she suspects psychosis, and suggest a trained psychotherapist. But perhaps a priest might be better equipped, given responses like “I have slept a thousand years, I am perfectly rested.” Separately, Kelly’s boyfriend, Paul (Caines) is out with their child, a trip which is plagued by increasingly bizarre events, and a perplexing call from Kelly’s doctor (Shapiro in a cameo).
Do not expect levitating beds, spinning heads or flying pea-soup. As possessions go, this is strictly low-key, expressed through words rather than actions. For the majority of the time, you’ll be on the fence about whether Sabina is just mentally ill. As a consequence, it’s the kind of film which will live or die throughout, almost entirely on whether or not the performances can hold the viewer’s attention. These are a mixed bag. I actually found the Jordan and Quinn pairing more effective. The direction is kept very simple, with static camera shots that focus on the performers, and I found this section more interesting than you might expect. For a moment, I wonder if it was going to go full Cody Clarke, and just be two people in one location for the duration.
Maybe it should have been, for instead, the movie switches over to Paul and his situation. Despite some occasionally creepy moments, and while it does all end up tying together at the end (though not without questions), I felt this was the section where the film struggled, in both story and performances. For example, I am fairly sure no health insurance company will immediately accept some random woman saying “Yes, I am Ms. X” as proof of identity. Can we say, “HIPAA violation”? That’s why we have PIN numbers, etc. Yet it’s an essential plot-point here. I also didn’t like Paul much. While this turns out to be for good reason, his man-bun may have prejudiced me…